Why didn't he create proof of the gold's existence before giving the federal government an opportunity to make it all disappear?
I'll tell you why: the gold never existed, this guy is a con artist and his ploy is to pretend the government stole his gold, lose the lawsuit and claim a coverup, then raise money from people using his new "victim of the government" martyr status to make himself some sort of folk hero.
I mean come on; telling the government or anybody about the gold before you even dig it up and see for yourself? Before you even take a picture of the gold to prove it exists? Who would do that? It defies all common sense.
Excavating that magnitude of gold is certainly no small squeeze on the average paycheck. Additionally, the questions from the regulatory agencies when 7t of gold shows up on the market is certainly something worth considering. Finally, the security of keeping the whole operation under wraps while you excavate any of this yourself? Headaches upon headaches.
I'm not saying he should have taken the full 7 tons out of the ground without telling anybody. The least he could have done is excavate a small portion of the gold to prove any of it exists at all. Don't go to the feds until you have proof of at least that much. You don't need to extract all the gold to prove you found any gold.
> He suspects the agency conducted a clandestine, overnight dig between the first and second days of the court-authorized excavation, found the gold, and spirited it away.
If his claim is true and it took the government only one day and one night to extract 7 tons of gold, then it couldn't have been very deep. He should have dug some of it up. As it stands, this guy has no proof that any gold ever existed at all. He never even laid eyes on the supposed gold.
I'm not entirely sure of the legalities here: would he have been allowed to dig up that gold? Would he be entitled to a finder's fee from the FBI? Reporting it instead of digging it up may well have been the right thing in this situation.
And if the government had excavators, an army of trucks and possible other machinery, as the article suggests, then I don't see why they wouldn't have been able to extract 7 tons of gold in one night. And a lone treasure hunter may not have access to such resources.
That doesn't pass the smell test. If this were a con, how on earth would the conman expect to get paid? Extorting the FBI for a finders fee on gold they didn't recover?
I suspect the actual grift is riding the gravy train which is the conspiracy speakers/book writers circuit. The trial is just to give him a ticket onto the gravy train. The actual gravy will come from book deals, appearances and such-like.
Comparing a ran astray shadowy "intelligence" organisation of a major imperialistic power that operates with impunity even within its own country borders, is kind of a stretch.
If it existed, he would have known that owning gold bullion of any kind by civillians is illegal. Perhaps the FBI had good cause to seize it and thay's why he didn't advertise it?
Why do you say that? In the U.S. it has been legal to own any kind of gold since 1975.
This article explains that it was made illegal by FDR during the Great Depression, but made legal again in 1974, and that "There Are Currently No Limitations on Owning Bullion" [0]
The guy claims the FBI is trying to get out of paying him a few million in finder's fees.
The evidence he's presenting has some pretty suspicious gaps, the government has clearly redacted a lot of his FOIA requests. They are withholding a bunch of information that would be completely innocuous if they actually didn't find anything, so why be difficult about it?
There's a difference between the US Treasury and an FBI slush fund. Although one wonders the extent to which the usual difficulties in moving that much gold would or would not apply to the FBI.
I am supremely confused by the involvement of the FBI in the first place. I broadly appreciate that a Civil War cache of gold would initiate something like “an archaeological excavation to recover government property”. I can understand having law enforcement presence during the dig due to the high value of the property, and if I really stretch I guess the FBI are essentially the federal government’s police force? So maybe that could be the explanation for why they were involved, but I’m still dubious on that. Even then, why they would carry out their own archaeological dig? And why they would document it so poorly, and finally why would they redact their documentation so severely afterward?
Lottery ticket aspiring billionaires, town cranks, or a mixture of both?
Surely, if they had standing for a case, there would be discovery. If not, then the media or them could still crawl all up in govt records with a FOIA. Where is this mythical 7 tons of gold? Why not 2 or 400? There would be lots and lots of records of it if it existed.
My thinking is the media knowing full well there is no there there but would rather exploit some wild almost social media-sharable adventure victim outrage story. I hope they got paid for their tall tale.
I'll tell you why: the gold never existed, this guy is a con artist and his ploy is to pretend the government stole his gold, lose the lawsuit and claim a coverup, then raise money from people using his new "victim of the government" martyr status to make himself some sort of folk hero.
I mean come on; telling the government or anybody about the gold before you even dig it up and see for yourself? Before you even take a picture of the gold to prove it exists? Who would do that? It defies all common sense.